He plans to build an 80-foot-tall tower by stacking former railway planks at a slight spiral so that the entire structure will appear to change directions midway up, like a game of Jenga gone askew. Inside, a restaurant will sit on the building's lobby floor while a cantilevered, wooden staircase will lead visitors to the various white-cube gallery floors above. — wsj.com

Mr. Gilmore's specialty was marketing. During his 40 years with HOK, he helped the firm grow from a young St. Louis architectural office into a national and global powerhouse.

He played a key role in public projects including the America's Center and its expansion, the Edward Jones Dome, the Thomas Eagleton U.S. Courthouse, the St. Louis County Justice Center, Terminal 2 at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. — stltoday.com

Norma Merrick Sklarek, the first African American woman in the country to become a licensed architect, who helped produce Terminal 1 at Los Angeles International Airport and the American Embassy in Tokyo, died Monday at her home in Pacific Palisades. She was 85. — latimes.com

The young and energetic collaborative MASS Design Group has just recently been named Contract magazines’ 2012 Designer of the Year. [...] Contract praised MASS' philosophy, "designing for dignity, to improve people’s lives through design, and to be a primary example for how designers can rethink their role in a world of increasingly global impact." — bustler.net

Too often during the bubble, banks and builders shunned thoughtful architecture and urban design in favor of cookie-cutter houses that could be easily repackaged as derivatives to be flipped, while architects snubbed housing to pursue more prestigious projects.

But better design is precisely what suburban America needs, particularly when it comes to rethinking the basic residential categories that define it, but can no longer accommodate the realities of domestic life. — nytimes.com

In this uniformity, I see a tendency among architects to respect and maintain the status quo, and a consensus about what architecture is and can do for our society. That’s the expression of a decorative understanding of architecture, even if it expresses itself in a subtle, modernist language. (Jacques Herzog) — Places Journal

The marriage of light and geometry does indeed find its consummation in architecture, but for me it did not come about so easily. At age eighteen I entered a fine school of engineering, then transferred to a fine school of architecture, finishing there when I was twenty-four. After ten or so years of working in corporate offices, learning what it meant to build—and leading a rather turbulent life—I went out on my own. — lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com

“The transparent tubes refract the lights of Times Square, creating a cluster of lights around the heart. The hovering heart will appear to pulsate as its tubes sway in the wind. When people touch a heart-shaped sensor, the heart will glow brighter as the energy from their hands is converted into more light.” — New York Observer

To Ingels, buildings are more than just monuments. They are part of an ever evolving landscape. Each one is a unique challenge with problems to solve but also an opportunity to add value or beauty to lives of the people who will live in them or work in them every day. — whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com

The L.A. landscape would look much different without four Chinese-Americans — Eugene Choy, Gilbert Leong, Helen Liu Fong and Gin Wong — whose work has shaped some of the city's architectural landmarks. A new exhibit at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles examines their contributions. — vcstar.com

Between 2000 and when he left office last May, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley and agencies under his control approved roughly $20 million in payments to an architectural firm co-owned by his cousin’s husband.

That cousin — Theresa Mintle — now is chief of staff to Daley’s successor, Rahm Emanuel.

But city officials say Emanuel won’t be following Daley’s lead in approving new work for VOA Associates Inc., run by Mintle’s spouse, Michael Toolis. — suntimes.com

The design shows Eisenhower as a youth gazing out at images of his adult accomplishments against a backdrop of the Kansas plains. But the Eisenhower family objects to the design and is attempting to delay approval of the project in a dispute that has pitted a leading American family against one of the country’s most recognized architects. The family says Mr. Gehry should portray Eisenhower as a man in the fullness of his achievements, not as a callow rustic who made good. — nytimes.com

Architect and Woodbury School of Architecture professor Barbara Bestor presented an optimistic vision of architecture—one grounded in entrepreneurial practice and creating new opportunities—at the 2011 ACSA Administrators Conference: Old School/New School in November. (Co-chaired by Dean Norman Millar.) — vimeo.com

Liang Sicheng (1901-1972) is known as China’s “Father of Modern Architecture,” but he expressed strong sentiments throughout his career when it came to preserving the country’s heritage and identity. In the 1950s, when Beijing was selected as the nation's capital, he lobbied to keep its ancient buildings intact and urged the government to build an entirely new city instead. The ruling party disagreed, and ancient Beijing has become a distant memory. — artinfo.com